It was the inspiration for perhaps the most famous all girls’ school of all time.

But now the Stephen Perse Foundation – whose pupils’ delinquent antics were loosely depicted in the St Trinians cartoons and novels – is to break from tradition by opening its doors to boys for the first time in more than a century.

The first seven and eight-year-old boys will begin at the Foundation, a group of five independent schools whose fees cost up to £15,000-a-year, next month.

Unruly: Boys will join the Stephen Perse Foundation, Cambridge, in September. It is the school that sketch-artist Ronald Searle used as his inspiration for the anarchic girls' school St Trinians, starring Gemma Arterton

They will move up to the junior school from the Foundation’s pre-prep school, which already caters for male pupils.

Although the sexes will still be kept apart for some lessons, new toilets and classrooms have been built, and new sports equipment purchased, to ensure the boys are properly catered for.

By Year Five girls and boys will have separate classes for traditional subjects such as English, maths, science, personal, sexual and health education and some sports.

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The senior school, for children aged 11 to 16, will be open to boys from 2018.

Sketch-artist Ronald Searle partly based his anarchic boarding school of unruly girls in gym slips, led by an eccentric headmistress, on the Perse School for Girls and the Cambridge High School for Girls, both based in the city.

Named after Dr Stephen Perse, the English academic and philanthropist, the school, which opened in 1881, was originally known as the Perse School for Girls, before changing its name in 2007.

The Foundation’s pre-prep school, for children aged three to seven, and its sixth form college have allowed boys to attend since 2008 and 2010, respectively.

Although the junior school admitted boy pupils for a brief period in the late 19th century, it is more than 132 years since they were regulars. Economist John Maynard Keynes was one of the last males to be educated there.

Hit: The fictional establishment became a hit in novels, cartoons and films starring Rupert Everett as matron

Searle, who died in 2011, attended Boys’ Central School in Cambridge and based St Trinians on encounters with the girls from both local schools on his way home.

His spindly cartoons of naughty schoolgirls first appeared in 1941 and were later made into a series of books and films. The most recent adaptation in 2007 starred Gemma Arterton, Colin Firth And comedian Russell Brand.

Twins Aaran and Kamran Bennett, seven, will be among the first boys admitted to the junior school in September.

Their parents Sevarin and Ivan, from Whittlesford, Cambs, quickly signed them up in the hope they will benefit from teaching at the school which their daughter Maria, 10, ‘loved.’

Yesterday the boys said they were ‘really looking forward to playing in the junior school playground.’

Headteacher Tricia Kelleher said the school, which charges between £3,495 and £5,135 a term, would ‘remain true to its single sex roots.’

But she said it was ‘unfair’ that girls ‘should have all the fun.’

‘Keeping a distinctive approach to teaching boys and girls is still important to us,’ she added.

‘That is why we will be opting for the ‘diamond’ approach where boys and girls are taught most of their lessons in different classes.’